GameStick $79 gaming console promises support for XBMC and DLNA… eventually

The GameStick is an upcoming $79 stick which you can plug into your television to run Android games on the big screen. It also includes a wireless game controller, a special user interface optimized for the TV, and a store for apps and games that are compatible with the hardware.

Now the folks behind the project say you’ll also be able to run the XBMC media center application and stream media over a DLNA connection using the GameStick.

Those features won’t be available when the GameStick starts shipping in April. But the company says that it will offer an optional software update with XBMC and DLNA support in September.

While the GameStick is primarily designed for playing video games, it’s good to see that the company will offer official support for using the device as a media center, and in the press release announcing the move CEO PlayJam Anthony Johnson makes a nod to the general openness of the platform saying “the time for closed proprietary systems is ending which bodes well for true innovation.”

The GameStick features an Amlogic AM8726 ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, WiFi and Bluetooth and runs Google Android 4.0.

It faces some pretty tough competition in the Android gaming-on-TV space from Ouya, a company with a $99 game console powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core CPU — which will also support XBMC.